{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/5759",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 5759,
    "subject": "Urth Digest, Vol 73, Issue 54",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2010-09-27T14:51:21+00:00",
    "last": "2010-09-27T14:51:21+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<AANLkTim5tcZKFqevm7x68TFByRoo_8SqLzn5Lj=X1SRh@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Andrew Mason",
        "address": "andrew.mason53 at googlemail.com"
      },
      "date": "2010-09-27T14:51:21+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Urth Digest, Vol 73, Issue 54",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 2,
          "text": "Jane Delawney wrote:\nOn 9/26/2010 2:24 PM, Andrew Mason wrote:"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 3,
          "text": "It's not clear to me that Autarchs eat the brains only of Autarchs:\nthe stated aim of the practice is to make the whole Commonwealth\npresent within one person. Though of course this raises the question\nwho might have maintaining a chain of brain-eaters before Ymar's time."
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Is there any evidence that anyone did? I don't see it. There's that\n'perhaps' in Severian's musing (really, he has no idea at all how far\nback the 'inherited' memories go; he has no direct access to Ymar for\ninstance - as Conciliator, Sev doesn't even recognise the guy at first,\nwhen he's supposed to have ingested Ymar's memories alongside those of\nall the other Autarchs) and while someone, somewhen, has to have\nintroduced the tradition along with its essential mediator, the alzabo,\nit's not at all clear when this happened."
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "I take it the 'perhaps' means Severian is unsure how far back the\nearliest memory he can retrieve goes - on the uncertainty of that I\ntotally agree with you - not that he's unsure when the process of\ntransmission started. That he should even consider the possibility of\nmemories going back before Ymar suggests he has some inside knowledge\nabout the history of the practice; if it weren't for that the natural\nthing to think would be that Ymar was the first."
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}